An excellent review of Lauren Beukes‘ excellent novel Zoo City, one of my favourite books of recent years. Highly recommended. Don’t take my word for it, have a read of the review, go pick yourself up a copy and thank us later.
Oh, and while you’re at it, pre-order Lauren’s new book The Shining Girls too. It’s brilliant.Related articles
- books in 2013: progress report (espressococo.wordpress.com)
- Nick Harkaway takes Kitschies Red Tentacle award (guardian.co.uk)
- African novels to look out for (guardian.co.uk)
Zoo City, by Lauren Beukes
The Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Literature is one of the very few literary prizes I pay any attention to. In part that’s because I don’t read enough science fiction to otherwise be on top of what’s coming out, but it’s also because it’s a well curated prize that really does tend to catch much of what’s most exciting in the field.
Lauren Beukes’ second novel, Zoo City, won the prize back in 2011. That caused some controversy, with many arguing that it wasn’t science fiction at all but rather a fantasy novel which shouldn’t even have been shortlisted (hardcore genre fans can get very bullish about defending genre boundaries). For me the better view is that the boundaries aren’t the point. The point is that the Clarke Award did its job, by finding a bloody good book and shouting to the world…
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